Towards an anti-essentialist understanding of international education

1. Towards an anti-essentialist understanding of international education Xiaowei Zhou (Edinburgh Napier University) & Richard Fay (The University of Manchester)

2. Outline of the presentation Links to intercultural dialogue Introducing our teaching contexts One possible understanding of the contexts: the large-culture approach An alternative understanding of the contexts: the small-culture approach (Holliday, 1999; Singer, 1998) Conclusions

3. Links to intercultural dialogue • The complex culturality of educational contexts = a site for intercultural dialogue? • “deeper understanding of diverse perspectives and practices” – developing understandings of the complex culturality of these educational contexts • Xiaowei-Richard = collegial intercultural dialogue?

4. Introducing our teaching contexts In terms of nationality … Or, in terms of programme of study … Xiaowei’s teaching context: … situated in a Business School … teaching “Intercultural Business Communication” (hereafter “IBC”) at both programme and modular levels … Masters students on the IBC module include:

5. Introducing the contexts (continued …) Richard’s teaching context: situated across Schools of Education and Arts, Languages & Cultures [Humanities Faculty] MA TESOL, MA IC, PhDs [programmes] LEIP class – 17 nationalities with only 23 students MA IC seminar – American, German-Italian, Hong Kong Chinese, mainland Chinese, Thailand, ‘global nomad’ of Jamaican heritage [large culture characterisation] even the ‘British’ students are mostly ‘journeying’ TESOL-ers and IC-trainers Doctoral students – 4 from UK, + Canadian, Greek, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Swedish, Thai [large culture characterisation] -> lay understanding

6. Xiaowei • full ‘insider’ for P.R.China • privileged ‘outsider’ for the UK • relative ‘outsider’ to teaching in the UK • full ‘insider’ as a student from P.R.China in the UK • Richard • full ‘insider’ for the UK • complete ‘outsider’ for P.R.China • full ‘insider’ to teaching in the UK • full teaching ‘insider’ with students from P.R.China in the UK Our ‘insider’/ ‘outsider’ understandings of the teaching contexts • shared desire to understand the complex culturality of our contexts • decision to initially focus on the ‘Chinese student’ phenomenon … • … by combining our specialised understandings: -> Literature

7. Some insights from the literature about ‘Chinese students’ from a ‘Western’ point of view … ‘Chinese students’ are ‘passive recipients of knowledge’ and ‘quiet learners’ in theclassroom; they ‘lack in critical orindependent thinking’ (Ballard & Clanchy, 1991); They are ‘given to rote learning without developing real understandings’; they viewknowledge as a reproduction of what they learn (Carson, 1992); ‘Chinese students’ are oriented to collective ways of thinking and think as the groupthinks (Carson & Nelson, 1996); ‘CHC students’ believe that success is attributed more to personal effort than to innateability (Biggs, 1996). One possible understanding of our teaching contexts: the large-culture approach

8. Some insights from the literature about ‘Western lecturers’ from a ‘Chinese’ point of view (Huang, 2005): the lecturers “did not logically organise theirlectures”, while thestudents expect the lecturersto “make everything clear for them, includingthe difficult points and the important points”; the lecturers “do not feel constrained to followthe textbooks and the syllabuses”; the lecturers do not give clear definition of terms andconcepta; and there is too much student participation in theclassrooms, while the students are used toworking individually in China. One possible understanding of our teaching contexts: the large-culture approach (continued …) -> Large-culture understanding

9. One possible understanding of complex teaching contexts: the large-culture approach ‘givens’ about (individuals from) Country A ‘givens’ about (individuals from) Country B prescribe prescribe compare characteristics of collective communication characteristics of collective communication

10. exploring US IT (with our ‘insider’/ ‘outsider’ perspectives) (the phenomenon of ‘Chinese’ students in the UK) relatively complex simplistic Some reflections on the large-culture approach The large-culture approach seems to provide a convenient tool to make (often national-level) cross-cultural comparisons. However, our approach, not strictly comparative, but still problematically large-culture in approach: -> Small-culture understanding

11. An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: the small-culture approach (Holliday, 1999) Possible cultural and contextual influences Possible cultural and contextual influences interpret interpret Explore the interactional dynamic Actual communication of an individual from Country A Actual communication of an individual from Country B

12. An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: the small-culture approach (continued …) National culture (including urban, village, regional and other activity cultures) Professional-academic cultures International education-related cultures • Host institutional culture Student culture Classroom culture This figure is our reproduction of Holliday’s “host culture complex” (p.29, 1994).

13. An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: the small-culture approach (continued …) \ Lecturers in Uni A Mid-aged people Lecturers In Uni B “Post-80’s” EFL teachers’ community EFL learners’ community Sojourners’ community UK academy Music band UK academy UK China Richard Xiaowei interculturalists’ community Interculturalists’ community

14. complex contextualised US IT complex complex An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: the small-culture approach (continued …)

15. An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: The small-culture approach (continued …) Disciplinary culture: Intercultural Communication Disciplinary culture: Business-related studies The lecturer’s expectations, experience and preferred teaching approach The culture of the UK HE Xiaowei’s teaching context Other cultural influences … • Host institutional culture: the Business School The culture of postgraduate education The HE cultures in the students’ home countries Students’ expectations and ways of learning brought from their previous academic contexts 15

16. An alternative understanding of our teaching contexts: The small-culture approach (continued …) Disciplinary culture: Intercultural Communication Disciplinary culture: TESOL The lecturer’s expectations, experience and preferred teaching approach. The culture of the UK HE Richard’s teaching context Other cultural influences … • Host institutional culture: School of Education The culture of postgraduate education The HE cultures in the students’ home countries Students’ expectations and ways of learning brought from their previous academic contexts -> Conclusions

17. Concluding remarks • Large-culture approach: • Prescriptive • Top-down • Essentialist • Culturist (human thinking and • behaviour is determined by culture) • Ruling out explanations other than explanations based on national/regional cultures • Small-culture approach: • Interpretive • Bottom-up • Non-essentialist • Operationalist (culture emerges through human interaction) • Open to all possible explanations, including explanations based on national/regional cultures

18. Concluding remarks (continued …) Teaching context B Teaching context A We are working in contexts that are both similar and different, but not necessarily in national-level terms …

19. Thank you! Xiaowei: leazxw113@hotmail.com Richard: frjfay@aol.com